Ocean Challenge

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Tue 19 Jan 2016 20:40
Todays activity has been focussed on catching up with Ocean Reunion and thanks go to Chris and Julia in Bristol for keeping us up to date with their position. We finally picked them up on AIS when about 5 miles away but couldn’t see them at all until less than a mile away. In fact they saw us first, which isn’t surprising, and called us up on the radio. They hoped we would be going over to say hello and the fact that we were was “bloody brilliant” and would “make their day”! We will catch up with them again in Antigua for a beer next Wednesday. Clothes seem to be a hinderance to ocean rowers (imagine the chafe) but plenty of talcum powder is apparently essential. I will spare their blushes and post only a more modest photograph.
These guys are going along at around three knots and if that doesn’t sound very much it compares rather favourably with the 5 knots that we expect to average on passage. Looking at their technique it appears to be more wind and current than actual rowing but that compounds my current depression. Of course they will only make 3 knots with favourable wind and current but nevertheless we have a lot of sail and hull length generating only 2 knots of boat speed. Our hull speed - that is the maximum speed the hull will go through the water no matter how hard you drive the boat (surfing down waves will give more speed but that is different to hull speed) - is around 8 knots. I think 8.5 knots is the fastest we have recorded. This means that we may not be harnessing a potential 3 knots of speed. Of course on average we are never going to make hull speed but it raises the question of whether we are driving the boat hard enough. We sail very conservatively for various reasons - comfort, avoidance of gear failure, sheer laziness. At the other extreme racing boats expect to suffer gear failure as they are driven so hard all the time. Steve will testify to this, having spent much of his sailing in races and experiencing a lot of gear failure as a result and working extremely hard to achieve it. Looks like we have to get that cruising chute up more often……………